The processes behind the giving of gifts!

For me, the amount of thought that is put into gift giving is dependent on who the gift is for, and what kind of present is in mind. To buy a pair of socks would require a different level of thought and involvement (absolutly zero for me!) compared with buying an expensive piece of jewellery or a new mobile phone or computer.

It seems that mainly items of higher value and interest to the purchaser will be an involved decision as there are more risks involved with the purchase. This can be described by Laurent and Kapferer (1985) who argue there are 4 components that affect a consumers purchasing decision.

1. Importance and Risk. FTPEPS - Finance, Time, Performance, Ego, Physical and Social.

2. The probability of making a bad purchase (the product may not work, or there may be a problem).

3. Pleasure value of product category ( enjoyment in purchase transaction).

4. Sign value of product category (What will others think of the product; will they make an assumpton about you based on the product?)

A present that is always somewhere on a girl's christmas or birthday wish list is perfume. Laurent and Kapferer use a number scale to rate the level of involvement put into buyng different products. Perfume rates very highly across all components affecting consumer decisions, indicating that buying perfume is a highly involved process. This may be because of pricing; perfumes can be fairly expensive, so wanting the best for your money will be important, especially in this economical climate. Another factor that would affect the purchase of a perfume may be the worry of making a bad purchase - will the recipent like the scent, will your choice of perfume for others send out a message about you, and will it be a positive one or a negative one?

Looking at a scale based on Kotlers Buyer Decision process, it is stated that the more often you buy a product (routine based items such as coffee, loo paper), the less involvement. This is due to the fact they that they are bought on a regular basis so no thought it needed in the decision process. Items however that are bought infrequently require a high amount of involvement because it will not be a purchase that you are used to making. For christmas, my brother wanted a popcorn maker, a product that I had never bought before in my life! This meant that there was a lot of involvement because I wanted to look around at the different options so to get the best I could for my money. I visited a range of different shops and asked shop assistants probably really stupd questions, but it was because ths was a product that was alien to me, therefore I needed to to put more involvement into the process than I would have done if I were buying him a Wii game etc.

One of the main factors affecting purchasing decsions currently, whether it be for a gift or for a regular purchase, is value. People are wanting to spend less but obtain the same results for their money. Different products have different features that helo to drive the value of that product. It could be the functionality...something that can be utilised. It could be that the product is symbolic, either through its branding or its image; giving the consumer that extra reason to choose their product over another. Finally the purchase could be hedonistic, involving a sense of fun. For instance, my dad will always buy my brother and separate silly presents at christmas, last christmas I got given a mini Henry desk hoover...a little dig at me for never dusting! This gift would therefore fall nto the funxtional category as well as the hedonistic category.

Danziger (2004) states that the process of gift giving creates an emotional connection between the purchaser and receiver. He sees the element of emotion as the main factor affecting decision making, the ultimate goal of purchasing gifts to result in a special feeling, both by the purchaser and the receiver. Danziger looks at the gift as a symbol of a message wanted to be portrayed to the receiver. This can be demonstrated by taking champagne as an example; if you receive champagne as a gift, it normally gives out the message of celebration. If the giver and recipient's value drivers differ however, this can lead to problems in the emotional connection and message sent out.

This theory of emotion affecting purchases supports the fact that gift selection is right brain dominated, the emotional side of the brain. The selection of the store to get the gift from however, is decided from the left side of the brain, the rational thinking side. This has a big impact on marketing as it is is the experience of the shopping experience in the particular shop that will affect whether the customer will return or not. Some shops will try to create a more enjoyable shopping experience by offering extra unpaid for extras such as wrapping the product and placing it in elegant looking bags; making the purchase feel special, creating an emotional connection with the purchaser before the gift has even been given to the receiver.

Memory and Nostalgia

"In the real world, making a good decision is not mostly about choosing the best option. A good decision means choosing an option that works and allows you to move quickly onto whatever you want to do next." Tim Williams (taken from WARC)

Kotler's Buyer Decision Process assumes optimisation rather than satisfaction, but in terms of buying heuristically (buying quickly with not much thought), it is not optimisation that is focused on, but satisfaction. When we go to a supermarket, we do not tend to look for optimisation, we tend to make judgements on what product has satisfied us in the past (done through referring to memories).

The simplest heuristic is recognition. If there is an option of a recognised brand versus an unknown brand, the recognised brand would probably be chosen. An example could be my mum going food shopping each week and returning mostly with the same brands every time. This backs up the idea that if she has been satisfied by a product previously, she will purchase that product heuristically again and again. This seems to be a safeguard; stick to the product you know and like rather than going for the unknown and being disappointed.

Memory

"Learning is the acquisition of knowledge. Memory is the storage of internal representation of that knowledge." Blakemore 1988.

Everytime an advert or commercial appears, the objective is for the viewer to learn something and remember it. This is obviously crucial, if viewers do not remember what advertisments are promoting, the brand is at a loss. This concept relates back to researching into what target audiences are most likely to take interest in (e.g. humour and simplicity for males and detals for women).

Memory affects different stages of Kotler's buyer decision process, the information search and evaluation of alternatives. When a product is being purchased, the consumer will go back and retrieve information from their long term memory regarding past experiences and thoughts. If the experience of the product was satisfactory or above, the informaton search probably would not be considered, however, if past experiences suggested the product was below satisfactory, an alternative brand may be chosen.

Nostalgia

"A wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in ones life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends. It is a sentimental yearning for the happiness for a former time or place."

"When a stimulus is capable of recreating a personal event, even after many years, there often follows a bitter sweet feeling of nostalgia." Dubois 2000.

"Nostalgia has been described as a bitter sweet emotion, where the past is both viewed with sadness and longing." Solomon 2000.

Nostalgia is used frequently by advertisers to remind and take their veiwers back to the prime time of their lives. One company that is especially renound for the use of nostalgia in their adverts is Marks and Spencers; they have used both music and image to create nostalgia, as well as iconic faces such as Twiggy. By using certain music, a feeling of happiness can be achieved through triggering memories from the particualr era. This ultimately creates a positive link between the nostalgic memories and the product being advertised.

To test the effects of nostalgia myself, I have conducted a short interview with my mum and taken her back to the early 80's where she would have been in her early 20's...the age that is supposed to be the prime of your life! The video starts off fairly calmly, but towards the end A LOT of editing had to be carried out as mum got rather carried away...the nostalgic feeling for her got a bit too exciting!!

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus....

It is fairly obvious from this diagram, that the male and female brain definitly work in different ways! For a marketer or advertisor, it is therefore vital to look into the most effective way of getting target audiences to respond, whether it be a male or a female.

When taking a test to discover my brain's "Sex I.D", found that my brain worked largely in a female orientated way, but showing some male orientated thinking patterns. When carryng out a certain part of the test, I found out that the right side of my brain is my dominant side. The right sde of the brain is said to be more adept at language, logic and linear thinkng, whereas the left side of the brain is responsible for controlling visual, spatial and intuitve processes. Another part of the brain test showed that I scored 15 out of 20 when calculating how empathetic I am (showing how I respond to other's emotions). When calculating my systemising score, I only gained 3 out of 20 points, this would suggest that I do not enjoy exploring the intricacies of systems e.g. putting together flat pack furniture!!

Research has shown that females tend to respond more to emotions, details and the use of language. Males on the other hand are more responsive to humour, statistcs and facts.



This Stella Artois advert directed at the male audience uses humour to portray it's message; it implies a James Bond type scenario, making men associate the brand with an iconic (?) character.



This advert shown from the NSPCC has been reported to have gained most of it's donations from a female audience. This relates back to the theory that women respond to emapthy. Another audience that these types of adverts may have a greater impact on may be mothers; an audience that would deeply empathise wth an advert such as this one.

Schiebe and Condry (1984) examined advertisments according to product type and found major gender differences in the values promoted in the advertisments. They found that advertisments aimed at women focused on stressing beauty and youth, whereas the adverts aimed at males emphasised on ambition and physical strength.

When looking at a case study regarding how direct mail is used, it was interesting to see how different writing styles resulted in very different results. Charities tend to use an emotoional female orientated writing style. When researchers re-wrote a certain charity mail shot to make it more masculine and factual, there was an 85% increase in responses from men. When sending this more factual mail shot out to women, there was a 15% decrease in response when comapared with the original emotional version.

Feedback from males and females show that women prefer a more collaberative and conversational style of writing whereas males are annoyed by a chatty style and preferred hard data and facts, as well as concise language. It was also found that women prefer strong colours and evocative images, whereas images were unimportant to males and the use of colours did not generate much interest.